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User Rating: 4.9 | Retro Atari Classics DS
By bartistocool | Review Date:
This is a collection of Atari arcade games from the late 70s and early 80s set up to take advantage of the dual screen and touch stylus of the Nintendo DS. The collection includes Centipede, Gravitar, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Sprint, Tempest, Warlords, Asteroids and Breakout. There is wireless multiplayer off a single game on Pong, Sprint and Warlords. I could see where a four player game of wireless warlords could be fun. Some of the controls were a bit tricky with the stylus and it could have benefited from a controls option screen. Tempest needed to be more sensitive to the touch. It is obvious that these games were ported rather than emulated.

They also hired some "Urban" artists to remix and redesign the graphics of the game to add a rather wacky contemporary feeling to the games. You can either play as the classic graphics or the remix mode. It is slightly weird that they got the graphic designer behind Obey Giant to remix the graphics to Missile Command. The sound and game play does not change in the remix mode. Asteroids Remix looks particularly pop art.

I can't believe they left out other cool classic Atari games like Gauntlet, Star Wars (the vector 3d game) and Marble Madness I mean Marble Madness would have been awesome on the touch screen and Gauntlet would have ruled with wireless multiplayer off a single cart. I was left wanting more and it seamed a bit light when it came to delivering a 70's arcade in my hand on das DS.

This is pretty straight forward and is actually quite a bit of fun and I could see how this would be fun to play if you don't have a lot of time to play on your hands. I actually can't wait to see Namco Museum Battle Collection on PSP. Most of the games in Retro Atari Classics are not just old but pretty ancient. It has Wifi pong for Mario's sake!

This collection is not going to win in any the youngsters that were raised on Quake 3 but this is a fun but quick trip back in the video game time machine for the Nintendo DS gamer retro hipsters in their 30s. It was not bad but it could have been better.

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